Liberation radios, the propaganda stations operated by the anti-Apartheid and anticolonial movements Southern Africa, provide us with a unique lens on the relationship between broadcasters and their audiences. Most importantly, they conceptualized audiences in a specific, two-pronged way to mobilize target populations and influence global media…[Read more]

In late colonial Basutoland and early independence Lesotho, the issue of who could access citizenship rights and passports became increasingly important. Political refugees fleeing apartheid South Africa took up passports on offer in the territory to further their political work. Basotho residents also took up passports in increasing numbers as a…[Read more]

The chapter presents a comparative history of two African cities notorious for the way their informal transport systems are regulated by different actors. It looks at how small private (often unlicensed) transport operators took over public transport in the 1950s and 1960s, their efforts at self-regulating and the efforts of informal workers to…[Read more]

Many analyses of media in Africa and elsewhere have emphasized the change in the relation between producers and consumers of media content that new media such as mobile telephony and the internet apparently have instigated (Lister et al. 2009; Ekine 2010).1 Whereas in ‘old’ (mass) media the two areas were clearly separated and producers det…[Read more]

This article traces the history of a group of Zambian broadcasters who established the first radio station in the country and made their mark on broadcasting for years to come. It describes their contribution to modern Zambian culture and to nationalist mobilisation. African broadcasters developed formats, ways of presenting and music that…[Read more]